AN outraged father has challenged Royal Mail bosses to push his disabled son's wheelchair to the post office they want him to use.

Company bosses said they believed it was reasonable for pensioners and the disabled to make their way to one of two alternative Accrington post offices if plans to close their Whalley Road branch go ahead.

Now an irate Hyndburn councillor campaigning to save the four local branches under threat has challenged officials to push his autistic son in a wheelchair up and down Whalley Road to see how difficult it is.

Royal Mail so far have declined Coun Malcolm Pritchard's offer.

In letters explaining the closure plans, which were prompted by falling trade, Post Office managers said they had 'walked the terrain' in local areas and believed it suitable for customers to walk to get to alternative post offices if the branches earmarked for closure shut.

The two alternative post offices for users of Whalley Road are either Clayton-le-Moors - which involves a bus ride and then a 300-yard walk down a hill - or Accrington town centre, which involves a half-mile trip and a steep hill.

Coun Pritchard, an independent councillor, of Moss Hall Road, said: "They simply aren't telling the truth when they say that it's acceptable to walk to another branch from Whalley Road.

"They say they have walked the terrain and don't see any problems with their proposals. That hill is a problem.

"I have asked them to try and push my 22-year-old autistic son Stuart in his wheelchair from Whalley Road into the town centre and back again because that is what I will have to do in the future.

"These proposals haven't been thought through and they will hit the most vulnerable, the elderly and the disabled, the hardest."

In addition to post offices in Whalley Road and Nuttall Street, Accrington, one in Oswaldtwistle and one in Stanhill are set to be chopped when consultation ends next month.

A spokesman for Royal Mail said: "We have taken Coun Pritchard's points on board, but we do have to close some branches to ensure the others remain viable.

"We accept it will cause some inconvenience but I can assure people in Hyndburn we have been out and walked the area."